He's Just Not That Into You and Riposo 72

I quote the contemporary sage Beyonce, "If you liked it then you shoulda putta ring on it." This truism and others are explored through the Baltimore dating scene, an ode to the confused state of modern male-female relationships.

Parts of this chick flick made me want to jump out a window (or more realistically, grab my face to cover my eyes, as if this gesture could save the character on screen from their own awkwardness). Sure the situations were somewhat exaggerated (the dentist's pen, really?), but there was just enough realism to make me feel as if I was watching a horror movie based on my friends' lives (My Bloody Valentine?). I saw the embarassing missteps and wanted to scream "Don't go in there!!" to the troubled heroines. But instead, I held my cynical tongue. After all, these characters, like your girlfriends, don't want your real advice, they want you to soothe their wounded hearts and egoes. They want you to google destination weddings for them and the dude they just met on the elevator.

The film assesses these situations pretty fairly, albeit glossily (appropriate that the ladies work in marketing as isn't that what these relationships have become? Clever branding. I have also never seen the city of BMore look so white. Apparently yoga mats come compliments of your city taxes). Even Scarlett Johansson doesn't get want she is after. And she's freakin ScarJo!

When it comes to love, we behave irrationally no matter what people advise us. But as Ginnifer Godwin tells Justin Long, the drama of the pursuit is way better (questionably?) than the isolated alternative. You have to give to get. And if you build it (become a whole, interesting, fun person), they will come. And as clever film execs say, if you cast it with hip Gen-Xers, adapt a popular chick lit title, target the V-Day girl power demographic, and hand out free Crest Whitnening strips, they will come...and buy overpriced popcorn while frenetically checking their blackberries to see if he facebook messaged them.

As for the other pearls of wisdom, I think I will start taking dating advice from Hollywood when Ben Affleck proposes to me.

Until then, big girls don't cry. They drink. Forget the Joe (and the Steve, the Justin, the Giles...) and share a bottle of Pinot with your gal pals at Riposo 72, my favorite wine bar on the upper west side.